The present invention relates to an infant care apparatus and, more particularly, to an infant warming apparatus having an overhead radiant heater and a pivotable canopy that is positioned over an infant.
In the care of newborn infants, there are various types of apparatus that provide heat to an infant and such apparatus can include infant incubators, infant warmers and combinations of the two. In such apparatus, there is normally provided, an infant platform on which the infant is positioned so as to receive the care and that infant platform is a generally planar surface located so as to underlie the infant. With infant warmers, there is also an overhead radiant heater that can be energized to direct energy in the infrared spectrum toward an infant resting on the infant platform to warm the infant.
In certain infant apparatus, there is also provided an infant compartment that encloses the infant and which can thereby form an enclosed area where the infant can reside within a controlled atmosphere where heat and possibly humidity are controlled so as to create a beneficial atmosphere for the wellbeing of the infant. That infant compartment is formed by the presence of a canopy located above the infant and which thereby encloses the infant resting on the infant platform.
An infant warmer is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,474,517 of Falk et al as prior art to that patent; an infant incubator is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,936,824 of Mackin et al and a combination apparatus that combines the functions of both an infant warmer and an infant incubator is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,224,539 of Jones et al.
As a further apparatus for caring for an infant, there can be a fixed heater mounted above the infant platform along with a movable canopy such as is shown and described in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/672,948 of Falk et al and entitled “Infant Care Apparatus With Fixed Overhead Heater” and the disclosure thereof is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. With that latter apparatus, there is a moving canopy however, the radiant heater itself is maintained in a fixed location.
One problem with the use of a canopy covering the infant to form the infant compartment, however, is that there are, obviously, times that the canopy must be opened in order to access the infant or to insert or remove the infant from that infant compartment. Therefore, there must be some means by which the canopy can be moved between a closed position where the infant compartment encloses the infant to an open position where the infant is accessible to carry out an intervention or procedure on that infant.
Accordingly, one convenient method that can be provided to allow the movement of the canopy between open and closed positions is by pivoting the canopy, preferable at one of its shorter ends of the generally rectangular footprint configuration and normally at the end that is herein defined to be the north end of the apparatus, that is, the end where there is normally located the various controls and monitors that are employed in carrying out the functioning of the apparatus and which is the end of the apparatus where the infant's head is conventionally located during the employment of the infant warming apparatus.
A difficulty arises, however, in pivoting the canopy at one end thereof between an open and a closed position is that there is often an overhead obstruction that is located above the infant platform such that the pivoting of the canopy about its north end is inhibited since the longer dimension of the canopy causes the canopy to encounter or hit the obstruction when the canopy is pivoted upwardly. With the apparatus described in the aforementioned patents and pending patent application, that overhead obstruction is the radiant heater that provides heat to the infant when located on that infant platform.
As such, therefore, the normal solid or one piece canopy cannot be readily opened with a pivoting motion about one of its shorter ends, since that canopy will physically encounter that obstruction and thus will be prevented from opening sufficiently to allow full access to the infant or to allow the apparatus to employ an overhead radiant heater to warm the infant.
It would, therefore be advantageous to have an infant care apparatus utilizing a canopy that is designed to be opened and closed, by pivoting about one end, where the canopy is specially constructed to function in the presence of a fixed overhead obstruction and yet which can be pivoted between open and closed positions without the obstruction unduly limiting the opening movement.
It would be further advantageous if that infant care apparatus were an infant warmer apparatus and the obstruction were the radiant heater used with that apparatus to provide heat to the infant.